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The value of mass media advertising can be demonstrated by quantifying what happens when it is removed. The current study does this, extending the work of Hartnett, Gelzinis, Beal, et al. (2021) by documenting changes in market share for 365 U.S. brands from 22 consumer goods categories that stopped advertising for at least one year. Market shares of brands without advertising declined, on average, at a steady rate year over year. On average, market share declines were more common and substantial among small brands and those losing share before advertising ceased. That prior findings generalize to a new market and many new categories increases confidence in the results Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Although marketers are increasingly asked to manage brands for the long-term, it is difficult to do so when no clear picture exists of long-term brand buying. This study reports cumulative behavioural loyalty outcomes for 200 UK consumer-goods brands when observed in a five-year household panel of continuous reporters. We examine these brands in intervals from one to five years against NBD (Negative Binomial Distribution)-model projections. Stationary brands attract over twice as many buyers in five years as they do in one. Of these buyers, 80% purchase the brand at a rate of once a year or less, yet contribute 40% to total sales, a Pareto ratio of just 60:20. For managers, this light buying is broadly predictable from NBD fittings to annual data, and implies a renewed emphasis on nudging the brand buying propensities of the whole market. Summary Statement of Contribution Few studies have considered brand performance cumulatively. We present new benchmarks for the developments not easily seen in annual panel data, that occur in the buyer base of stable consumer packaged goods brands over five years. These include continuing cumulative penetration growth, and a large influx of light buyers. We advance NBD theory, demonstrating how a stochastic model can still explain and project these changes from annual fittings, to link the ‘here and now’ with long term brand performance.

A crucial task for digital advertising is to influence choice despite consumers’ lack of attention. Yet, there is little evidence about digital advertising effectiveness or about the source factors that affect consumers under conditions of low attention. Using a mixed factorial experiment, we find clear evidence that digital advertising is effective despite low attention. The results for brand familiarity and product characteristics are more nuanced; the effects are greater for unfamiliar brands, and also for familiar brands that are utilitarian. These findings are encouraging for digital advertisers who may feel released from the imperative to design attention grabbing advertisements. However, the results also emphasise the need for advertising theory to take better account of low attention and the opportunity to further investigate the circumstances under which low-attention advertising will be most effective.

The Modern Data Analysis paradigm (Williams, 2021) advocates using multiple methods to address the same research question, which is rarely done in studies of advertising creative effects. In this paper, we apply the MDA paradigm to data from Hartnett, Kennedy, et al. (2016), which coded 158 creative variables for 312 television advertisements with commercially validated short-term sales effectiveness outcomes. We found that many models give higher classification accuracy than the ordinal regression model previously applied, some significantly higher. Importantly, by applying many alternative but equally plausible analytical methods, we can identify creative variables associated with commercial success and have evidence-based confidence that these creative variables are artefacts of the data, and not artefacts of any particular analytical method and its associated assumptions. The findings reveal several alternative creative variables that are consistently associated with sales success across methods, which relate to the timing aspects of visual branding. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper aims to empirically establish the effectiveness of a supermarket layout with a middle aisle splitting all other aisles, compared to a ‘traditional’ layout (without a middle aisle). Two supermarkets in Australia were matched by size, turnover, population/location, and general layout, except that Store 2 had a middle aisle. The research aims to: (1) explore the shopper traffic entering and existing the middle aisle, and interaction with endcap promotions (which have effectively been doubled by the creation of the middle aisle in Store 2), and (2) compare the two stores based on basket size (in items and dollars) and trip duration. These are typical supermarket metrics, which might differ due to increased opportunities for impulse purchases from the extra endcap displays in the middle aisle. Despite the middle aisle, results show that all performance metrics are almost identical between the two stores on the overall level. However, the store containing the middle aisle sees a higher proportion of trips for under 15 items. Overall use of promotional ends of aisles is the same across both stores, meaning that the use of each endcap is effectively halved. This means that the presence of a middle aisle does not bring any additional value in terms of making the store easier or quicker to navigate. It may provide additional benefits to retailers in terms of giving more promotional space to manufacturers, at the expense of making each endcap half as likely to generate interest. Our additional analysis of the traffic flow near the endcaps suggests that, in most occasions, shoppers pass through the aisle as if there was no break. These results are useful insights to retailers considering remodeling an existing store and manufactures buying endcap space in a store with a middle aisle Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper compares the buying behaviours of older and younger consumers of older and newer brands in grocery retailing. We analysed 88,000 purchases of 60 brands from six categories. Behavioural loyalty measures for different consumer age cohorts were calculated and compared relative to each brand's launch date. Results showed older consumers do not buy older brands more often than newer brands. Older consumers also do not principally buy older brands. Therefore, brands of all ages compete for consumers of all ages. Findings indicate that for newer brands, older consumers should not be ignored as a market for growing the brand. For older brands, despite the default advantage of long-term exposure of older consumers, such advantage will fade if these brands fail to maintain a competitive presence in the market, as older consumers trial and become loyal to newer brands Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper investigates consumer's behavioural loyalty to online supermarkets over time. We use three measures of behavioural loyalty (share of category requirements, repertoire size, and polarisation index) from four major online supermarkets in the UK across five categories. We find that loyalty to online supermarkets is high in the categories we examined, though it declined somewhat from 2005 to 2009 and subsequently remained stable from 2010 to 2014. We also extensively test the generalisability of the well-known Dirichlet model to the choice of online supermarkets. We find that the model gives better fit from 2010 to 2014 than from 2005 to 2009 and can describe loyalty and competition in this context. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This study proposes an alternative approach to the usual cognitive investigation of cultural venue and event attendance. This approach is based on stochastic preference theory. Specifically, the study utilises two well-known stochastic models of consumer behaviour: the NBD model and NBD-Dirichlet model to predict attendance behaviour at cultural venues and events. Using data from a large national survey across a range of cultural venues and events in Australia, including art galleries, museums, zoological parks and aquariums, botanic gardens, archives, music concerts, theatre performances, dance performances, musicals and operas, and cinemas, the study shows that stochastic preference theory is able to predict the attendance at cultural venues and events. This theory has important implications for marketers of cultural venues and events, such as which segments of attendees should be targeted, predicting future attendance behaviour, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of marketing activities such as price promotion and advertising.

This research examines the retrospective buying behaviour of customers acquired by a new brand, both at category and brand level. New brand launches are risky endeavours for marketers, as many fail to attract a sustainable customer base.We examine new brand launches in six packaged goods categories in the UK,across a wide range of brand and category conditions, including premium brands and private labels. The results show that, in the pre-launch period, buyers of anew brand are more likely to have been heavier (more frequent) category buyers and, where applicable, heavier buyers of a parent brand. However, despite disproportionately drawing from heavy category buyers, the buyers of new launches tend to become only light brand buyers. This suggests that new brands are more likely to ‘slip’ into the repertoire of heavy category or parent brand buyers. This research contributes to our understanding of repertoire formation in packaged goods categories. It also has implications for the pre-testing of new launches and the scheduling of marketing activities. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper compares consumer brand purchase loyalty for food products bought either ‘on the go’ (OTG), or for take-home consumption. The study uses two UK consumer packaged goods datasets. The first dataset comprises consumers' purchasing of brands in three product categories: soft drinks, crisps, and savory snacks for on the go consumption. The second contains consumers' purchasing of the same brands for take-home consumption. Analysis uses the polarization index as a behavioral loyalty measure, estimated from the Beta Binomial – Negative Binomial Distribution. This measure controls for the difference in purchase rate and brand market share across on the go and take-home. The study finds that consumer loyalty to brands is markedly higher in purchasing for on the go consumption than for take-home consumption; and that the effect is even stronger for larger brands in on the go. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper compares consumer behavioral brand loyalty in purchasing for on-the-go and for take-home consumption. The study uses two consumer packaged goods datasets from the UK. The first dataset contains actual consumer repeat purchasing of soft-drink brands for on-the-go consumption. The second dataset contains actual consumer repeat purchasing of the same brands for take-home consumption. Using polarization index as a behavioral loyalty measure, estimated from the Beta Binomial – Negative Binomial Distribution, the study finds that consumer loyalty to brands is markedly higher in purchasing for on the go consumption than for take home consumption.

New brand launches are risky endeavors for marketers, as many fail to attract a sustainable customer base. This research examines the buying behavior of customers acquired by a new brand and revisits the theoretical norms of the NBD-Dirichlet model benchmarks. Investigating 40 new brand launches in the UK, across a wide range of brand and category conditions, we find that in the first 12 months, new launches have more, but less loyal buyers than expected from NBD-Dirichlet benchmarks, irrespective of type, price point, or the sales gained by the new launch. Further we find exploratory evidence that new buyers of brands have weaker associations than existing buyers. We propose that the combination of the new experience that lacks distinctiveness in encoding means that the experience of buying the new brand creates weaker memory traces in new buyers and that these buyers need additional marketing reinforcement to consolidate the memory of buying the brand to establish the brand in their ongoing repertoire. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper investigates behavioral loyalty of consumers to online grocery retailers over time. The study uses consumer packaged goods data from the UK, one of the most advanced online retailing countries. The data contains actual consumer repeat purchasing of three product categories (soft drinks, toothpaste, and cat food) from four major grocery retailers (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, and Waitrose) operating online from 2005 to 2014. Using three measures of behavioral loyalty (share of category requirement, repertoire size, and polarization index), the study finds that consumer loyalty to online retailers has declined from 2005 to 2009 and remained stable from 2010 to 2014.

We analyse the purchasing of brands at both regular and promotional price over time. The goal is to better understand the extent of consumer deal-proneness. Our analysis shows most consumers buy brands on promotion at least some of the time, and the tendency to buy on promotion relates mostly to how much promotion is available in a category, suggesting little innate deal-proneness. The extent of promotion can be so high that as many as half of all brand buyers buy the brand solely when it is on promotion. However, this amount of on-deal buying is only very slightly higher than would be expected given the amount of promotion available. We find few buyers buy only on promotion. Promotion buyers of a particular brand also buy other brands on and off promotion more or less in line with the market share those other brands have at regular and promotional price. The three main implications are: (1) brand loyalty is still an important aspect of purchase, (2) a brand's normal-price buyers are a major source of its volume from price promotions, and (3) there is only a small effect of deal-proneness on promotion buying over and above that of promotion prevalence in a category. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This research confirms empirical patterns about in-store behaviors based on a large number of shops and store visits, specifically 654,000 transactions in 40 supermarkets, hypermarkets, convenience and specialty stores in the USA, UK, China, and Australia. Integrating new data with past findings highlights that: (i) many shopping trips are short; (ii) shoppers typically only cover a small proportion of the store on any trip, and (iii) the heterogeneity of key behavioral measures (store coverage, number of items bought, and trip length) is generalizable across countries, most store formats, and store size. These patterns can help retailers and manufacturers benchmark and predict behavior and provide a base for further theoretical developments.

The latest trend in the private label world are premium private labels, often more expensive than standard national brands (ter Braak, Geyskens, & Dekimpe, 2014). The question arises, are those who are already buying a lot of private labels a potential target for more expensive private labels? This paper aims to answer this question by examining the relationship between the loyalty to private labels and national brands and the average price paid. We utilized the UK Kantar TNS panel data and looked at purchasing of ten product categories between 2008 and 2012. The findings show that the higher the loyalty to private labels the lower the average price paid for private labels. In contrast, the more loyal consumers are to national brand the higher the average price paid for national brands. The findings provide important implications for retailers wanting to target shoppers with their premium private label offers in different categories.

Price promotions dominate the modern grocery retail environment. This paper documents the prevalence and nature of these price promotions (i.e., deal types and discount depths) in the United States and United Kingdom. The analysis comprises of 23 categories across five retail chains. One of the key findings is that multiple-unit promotions – deal types that have been under-researched – account for approximately half of all price promotion activity. The analysis also identifies an increase in price promotion prevalence since the Global Financial Crisis, predominantly driven by national brand promotions. This research carries important implications for the alignment of academic research with common industry practices Refereed/Peer-reviewed